As a recent architectural graduate I spend most of my time staring at my computer screen, ensuring that walls are drawn straight and coordinating construction details with the engineers in my office. Recently, however, I walked away from my computer and joined my colleagues in my firm’s sustainable design group to create a kinetic sculpture design.

Kinetic art usually involves moving parts and requires motion for its effect. In addition to my firm, Holabird & Root, the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association (GNMAA) invited 15 other top firms to participate in their fifth annual Tulip Days kinetic art sculpture. Many of our clients request sustainable building designs so we felt prepared for the task at hand. There are many individual components to sustainable design but it really boils down to creating a building that requires less energy, less repair, and is easy to sustain in the future.

Our team’s primary reason for entering the design competition was to raise public awareness about the power that can be generated by harnessing wind. We embarked on our sustainable design journey with one simple theory in mind: divide and conquer. Two smaller teams were formed and “Survivor: The Architect Edition” began. One group created an artistic sculpture that uses the natural resources generated on site—wind on Michigan Avenue—to exemplify how wind is a focal point of the sculpture’s artistic movements. The other group engineered a wind-driven design that resembles a wind turbine with working parts. When the two tribes joined together again, we incorporated the form and framework designed by the first group and the armature with the engineered turbines that the second group designed.

The GNMAA held a meeting where each firm had the opportunity to showcase their design and view the competing firms’ designs. Normally competitors, we found common ground by discussing whether our designs would be functional and what we were going to do with these huge sculptures once the competition was over. With our new knowledge
in-hand, we refined our design and moved forward with modeling the piece.

Our design needed to utilize the potential of wind for free energy. We moved beyond the basic requirements for the piece and endeavored to display an eclectic variety of environmentally friendly materials, using the medium of kinetic art. The final design is a curvilinear shape that gets its form from natural and man-made site conditions. This results in a physical manifestation of the wind across the site. The double-helix (remember what DNA looks like?) turbine translates the wind into tangible movement, resulting in the kinetic art piece.

Now came the most challenging part of the contest—coming up with a name. There was mention of naming the piece “The Turbinator” or some Latin variation for the word “wind.” We finally agreed on Nexus, which is defined as the means of connection between things linked in series.

The full-scale kinetic sculpture was installed this week in a tulip bed on Chicago’s famous Michigan Avenue where it will remain until May 31st. Ultimately, we were able to cultivate a forward-looking sustainable design concept that will turn Michigan Avenue’s tulip beds into an area for learning. Holabird & Root’s sustainable design group wanted to use this experience to build upon our firm’s award-winning sustainable design projects.

Within the few weeks that we had to complete this project, we became more than just architects with sustainable design knowledge. We became marketers, strategists, and engineers. We learned how to brainstorm and incorporate our team members’ points of view. I, for one, am grateful for the process but am glad that I can go back to pencil drawing, keyboard typing, and staring at my computer.